A/N: The beginning of the story is slightly different than the opening to the game for storytelling purposes.

Back in Black - AC/DC

Big Data - Dangerous

Danny Elfman - The Little Things

Queen - Under Pressure

Ashley Johnson/Sam Riegel - Mighty Nein Intro

Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice

Demi Lovato - Confident

Chapter 2:

Waking up on a cold stone floor with straw poking into all sorts of uncomfortable places is unpleasant at worst. If you add in the mild post migraine headache, the soreness and stiffness from being passed out in such an uncomfortable spot, it gets a little worse. The pins and needles were everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. My left hand especially felt like there were sharp little spikes prodding at my bones and muscles.

Taking a moment to look around yielded three things, one I was a prisoner, two, the guards had realized I was no longer down and out and three, the shackles on my hands were effing tight.

"Tell Lady Cassandra that the prisoner is awake." The left guard said to the right guard. While he took off, the other opened the cell and came in to pull me out. "You behave yourself."

Again my left hand tingled in a truly unpleasant way. More pins, more needles that seemed to crawl themselves up into both the ulna and radial bones only to peak at my elbow and subside with a few quick throbs. The guard pushed me down into a kneeling position in the center of the room. A handful of seconds later the other guard returned with two others. They took up spots at the four corners around me, their swords drawn.

Again my left hand tingled, this time followed by an arm jerking tweak in my elbow and lower humerus. It felt like fire ants were marching in time up my bones, inside my flesh, nibbling away as they went. The thin, pale green crack that seemed to follow the middle line of my left palm seemed innocuous aside from the uncomfortable, somewhat painful spikes that were coming sporadically.

I probably would have made a lame ass Doctor Who reference if the mind numbing pain hadn't robbed me of my senses temporarily.

The door opened again, Cassandra and Leliana coming through. In near unison the guards put their swords away.

Cassandra's boot heels tapped as she crossed the floor, where Leliana was nearly silent in her walk toward me. Would she recognize me? It had been more than ten years, and my head was bowed because I'd been looking at the mark on my hand.

"Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now." Cassandra's voice was a combination of distress, worry and overall anger. "The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead." She stood in front of me, arms crossed, "Except for you."

I shook my head. "Why on earth would you think that the only survivor did it? Logically, with that level of destruction, even the person who perpetrated the crime would have gone up in flames too."

Leliana moved in, two fingers under my chin forcing my face up. She looked older, and yet the same. I knew those eyes, those pretty eyes that I harbored so much jealousy over so many years ago. Her milky fair skin with freckles now sported new fine lines at the corners of her eyes, creases in her forehead and around her mouth. But my old friend was still there, plain as day. "Elyria?"

I tried to smile at her, but the mark spiked up my arm again. With each one, it got higher. Now it was deep in my humerus. Sooner or later it would reach my shoulder, then my back. Possibly my heart. Sweet Andraste, Spaghetti monster and every other god listening...this could kill me.

I needed to be ready to drop back into reality.

I let out a small shriek of pain in Leliana's face. Her expression faltered. "She did not do this."

"Explain this," Cassandra grabbed my shackled left arm and lifted it, thereby lifting my right arm too.

"Elyria Duke is not on either side of the war. She's from…" her voice trailed off for the briefest of moments. "From elsewhere."

"Elyria Duke…" Cassandra's voice was a thoughtful hum. "The dwarf spoke of an Elyria."

"Do you know what happened?" Leiliana asked me, "Do you remember anything Elyria?"

I knew what happened, I just lived it. But the spot where the Divine should have been was fuzzy. Otherwise everything else was crystal clear. For the record, those spiders in the fade are truly terrifying and I remembered everything. "Vaguely. I heard a man's voice, it was deep, and loud. Much too loud to be normal. He was saying something about a sacrifice. Then darkness, and a woman in the dark. She was so bright, brighter than anything I'd ever seen and I grabbed her hand…" I lifted my left hand up a little, and the shackles clanked as I did. "After that, waking up here."

They shared a look quietly, then Cassandra said, "Leiliana, go to the forward camp. I will take her to the rift."

My old friend spared me a look, almost sympathetic, before leaving.

"What happened?" I asked Cassandra as she pulled me to my feet.

She unlocked the manacles, and bound my hands with rope instead. "It will be easier to show you." She lead me out of the dungeon below the temple in Haven. Along the way my shackles were removed and replaced with rope binding my hands together tightly.

I had to shield my eyes for a moment when we exited the temple. As ugly, and heart stopping awe inducing as the breach looks on a screen, in real life - it was terrifying. And it roared. A steady rumble that seemed to reverberate in my hand, spreading its way up my arm, dissipating as it went.

"We call it the Breach. It's a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It's not the only such rift, just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the conclave."

I moved next to her, flexing my hand, expecting the next shock to drop me as it did all of the inquisitors I'd played previously. "An explosion can't rip open the veil between worlds."

"This one did. Unless we act, the breach may grow until it swallows the world."

From our vantage point, we couldn't actually see the rift grow. But I sure a shit felt it. This one felt like a frying pan smacking my palm, another whacking my elbow, and this time it went all the way into the joint of my shoulder. It dropped me, letting loose a keening cry from my lips.

She crouched in front of me. "Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads...and it is killing you. It may be the key to stopping this but there isn't much time."

"You," I snarled through clenched teeth, "cannot possibly believe I did this." The pain began to ebb off, slowly, like it was leeching itself from my bones to return to the mark on my hand. I pushed up on one knee, then to my feet. "I fought next to Leiliana during the blight. I was at Hawke's side until I had to return home. Why, why would you ever believe that I would do that," I pointed my marked hand at the Breach.

"Someone is responsible and you are our only suspect. You wish to prove your innocence? This is the only way."

"Of course I'll help, that was never in question."

Cassandra's head bobbed, and we were moving again.

Someone spat at me. They missed, but it landed just short of where I was. The people were scowling, crossing their arms and judging me amongst themselves.

"They have decided your guilt. They need it." Cassandra told me as she led me onward. "The people of Haven mourn our Most Holy, Divine Justinia, head of the Chantry. The Conclave was hers. It was a chance for peace between the mages and templars. She brought their leaders together. Now, they are dead."

The soldiers gave me both gave me equally scathing glances before they opened the doors at the edge of town. Slow falling flurries blew around us as she went on. "We lash out, like the sky. But we must think beyond ourselves, as she did. Until the breach is sealed."

Cassandra pulled the dagger and for a moment, my heart did jump in my chest even though I knew already she wasn't going to harm me. "There will be a trial." She met my gaze in a steady, almost reassuring way. "I can promise no more." Then the Seeker cut the ropes binding my hands. "Come, it isn't far."

I rubbed my wrists. The manacles had been uncomfortable, but those ropes had given me a little bit of rope burn. "Where are we going?"

"Your mark must be tested on something smaller than the breach."

I'd seen casualties before. I'd been in a war before. I'd seen corpses and wounded and people scared for their lives before. This, though, this was more than that. The fear in the air was permeable. The faint scent of the dead bodies and blood mixed in with the cold blasts of wind hitting the bridge. At the end of the bridge the soldiers looked exhausted guarding the gate.

"Open the gate! We are headed into the valley!" Cassandra told them.

They pulled open the gate for us, a polite nod at her, watching me warily.

There were more dead and more soldiers on the way up the hill. Agony shot up every nerve ending in my arm with the next shockwave from the mark.

Cassandra, looking almost concerned, crouched in front of me. "The pulses are coming faster now." One hand on my shoulder and the other on my opposite elbow, she helped me into a kneeling position. "The larger the Breach grows, the more rifts appear, the more demons we face."

The mark flared bright green, while the roar of the rift echoed in my bones. "It's a damn miracle I survived getting this thing in the first place," I muttered shaking my hand to attempt to alleviate the pulsing pressure of pain.

"I am told," Cassandra told me, looking a little over her shoulder at me, "that you stepped out of a rift, then fell unconscious. They say a woman was in the rift behind you. No one knows who she was. Everything farther in the valley was laid waste, including the Temple of Sacred Ashes. I suppose you'll see soon enough."

If I'd had more of a presence of mind, I might have analyzed the slight change in her script. Instead I kept moving toward the next bridge. Wait, isn't this the one that-

A meteorite of black, green and hellfire slammed down into the brickwork three seconds after Cassandra and I were half-way across. The blast took out the soldiers on the other end of the bridge, and sent me and Cassandra tumbling down with the wreckage. For the briefest of moments, I think I lost consciousness because the next moment I heard Cassandra yelling at me.

"Stay behind me!"

Inches from my face the warning signs of a shade bubbled in a green-gray-black puddle of nasty. Shaking my head to clear it, I cast around for the weapons. There, by the crate. A few of them had spilled out of the crate, including - thank you sweet Maker - a short sword and and a dagger. The ice was slippery under my winter boots, the snow and dirt soaked parts of my jeans clung uncomfortably. I reached, stretching across the ice and snared the short sword. With a quick swipe of the tip, I knocked the dagger closer.

The spikes of green and black shot up from the ground as I grabbed the dagger. Half a heartbeat later I was on my feet and the shade, as ugly and as angry as I remembered them to be, looked at me with one inhuman eye from under its hood.

Without thinking about it I dropped into a fighting stance, short sword slighting above my head, dagger posed mid-torso, both blades flat side out. "Try it," I snarled.

Cassandra chose that most opportune time to taunt. The shade turned and went after her instead of me. Oh. Goodie.

One, two, three steps and I slammed the dagger into the area by where its kidneys might have been located if it were human. The short sword went to its neck while it howled in inhuman pain from the dagger draining black essence from its body. The shade's cry of pain cut short as the head slid from its shoulders and dissolved into nothingness.

Cassandra slammed her shield into the other one, once, twice. It was clawing at her, or at least trying to. She hit it once more, this time knocking back just a step. That was all she needed to drive her sword into its chest. That shade too dissolved.

I knew she was a badass, but no, really, that was impressive for someone only a few inches taller than me, and heavier by maybe a pound or two. Warrior tanks man, holy shit. "That was seriously impressive."

She turned on me, saw my weapons and raised her sword. "Drop your weapons. Now."

And I think I'm kind of scared of her. "Are you sure you're up to protecting me the entire way to wherever we're headed?" I asked as I carefully placed the weapons on the ice at our feet. "I'm pretty good with these."

"Give me one reason to trust you," she demanded, tipping her chin at me as I straightened up.

When in doubt, the honest truth serves pretty well, "I don't want to die."

She paused, watching me, then Cassandra withdrew her blade. "You're right." She sheathed it on her hip. "I cannot protect you, and I cannot ask you to be defenseless. I should remember, you came willingly."

Again with that tiny, tiny script change. Ripples in the water and I haven't even been here a day. Reminder to self, don't let your hubris get in the way of the story. Don't go there.

While I was busy thinking, Cassandra had fished a few vials out of her side pouch. "Take these potions. Maker knows what we will face."

"No where to put them," I told her and patted my heavy dark gray and violet sweater and jeans for proof.

One of her dark eyebrows cocked at me. Business like, with a quick stride she crossed the distance from where we killed the shades to the crates and the one dead soldier. She rolled the soldier over, striped him of his pack, and helm, then returned to me. "Here. I have trained to protect myself. If what Varric tells me is true, you are not so adept."

Don't snort. No. Do. Not. Snort. She wasn't trying to be rude. I kind of wanted to clap back though. Instead I bit the side of my cheek until I tasted copper. "Thank you." I used the inside of my wrist of my sweater to clean off the smear of blood on the inside of the helm and pulled it on.

"Where are the rest of your soldiers?"I ask sparing a glance at the poor dead soldier she stripped of a helm and pack.

"At the forward camp," she told me as she nodded at the distance, "or fighting. We are on our own for now."

The pack went around my waist and the vials of healing potion went into it. Other stuff rattled around in there. Wonderful, I was once again the owner of a literal Mary Poppins fanny pack. "Let's go before this thing gives me a heart attack."

She nodded at me and we began the trek along the river toward the forward camp. We turned once we reached the boulders, the snow crunched under our feet as we climbed to the top of the small hill. Below us, on the other side of the frozen river, were more shades.

The mark on my hand flared sending a jolt into my shoulder, collarbone and shoulder blade. It wasn't as mind numbingly awful as the last one, but they all hurt. They hurt so goddamn much that it overwhelmed my senses for a good second.

I missed what Cassandra said next as she passed me to run down the hill. The shades met her immediately. I slid down the side of the hill and hit the one closest to me. We made quick work of them and moved on toward the next part of the river, and the stairs.

More shades and wraiths met us. The wraith fired weak bolts of green energy at us from the hill. This was a marathon, not a race. My arms, despite working out nearly every day for months before leaving, were getting sore from that much fighting. We were on the next part of the river when another wraith fired off at us.

Cassandra reacted quickly, taunting everything and running into the fray shield first. No question. She is a serious badass.

We were at the long stairway upward when she finally spoke to me again. "We're getting close to the rift. You can hear the fighting."

I chuckled and it sounded dark, even to me. My arms, shoulders and thighs were not enjoying this. Thankfully my core and lungs held up against the punishment of run, fight, run, fight, run some more in the icy air. Cassandra was slightly pink faced as well, she rolled her shoulders as we climb the stairs to the top of the next hill.

The bridge up there was destroyed too, and god it was warmer up there. The fires on the bridge and to the left of the stairs must have been why. I breathed in smelling dead things, burning and wood smoke. From here I could see the fighting. There was Varric with Bianca.

My heart jumped into my throat. For me it had only been a few months since I'd seen him. For him its been years. I double checked my helm, making sure it was securely over my face and charged toward danger.

The wraith about to fire into Solas' back, dissipated a breath after my short sword sliced diagonally through its body. Shoulder to waist. Cassandra barreled forward, slamming against a slightly larger than average shade. There were arrows flying from Bianca in a rapid, deadly succession. I almost forgot how good he was with that crossbow.

Solas on the other hand was a blur of movement with his staff. He trapped and froze a shade solid, then shattered it with another blast. The lone soldier fighting with them looked relieved to see us, and began to bludgeon the shade he'd been fending off with a heavy looking mace.

The fight only took a few more moments. We had the briefest of seconds all of us breathing hard, looking around for the next threat.

"Quickly, before more come through!"

Solas grabbed my arm by the wrist and lifted my hand, pointing at the rift. With the stream of green energy leaving the mark, so went the pain. The absolute relief stole my breath. Oh thank god. It had taken less than an hour for us to get here, but it felt like the pain would never be gone. I breathed out and for the very first time since I woke up, the mark had gone back to being a pins and needles itch that I could ignore.

The rift closed in a nearly audible pop.

"Next time," I said to him, extracting my arm from his grasp, "ask before you decide to manhandle."

"I meant no offence." There's that voice. The voice of Ianto Jones.

Shaking my hand out, "You just closed the rift with this thing."

"I did nothing. The credit is yours." And if I didn't know he was lying through his goddamn teeth, I'd actually believe him. He came off so genuine and sincere.

Had to be the accent. Or my love of Ianto blinded me to any deception. I cried my eyes out when his voice actor died in Torchwood. Ianto died a hero and no one, not on Earth and not in Thedas will ever be able to convince me otherwise.

"Credit shmedit," I said holding up my hand. "This thing closes little rifts, good chance it closes the big one, right?"

"Possibly. Whatever magic opened the Breach in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand. I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach's wake – and it seems I was correct."

Cassandra, instead of going through her line, said, "Then we should move on to the forward camp. The breach grows with every moment."

Solas looked me up and down, a mask of perfect banality on his face. "It seems you hold the key to our salvation."

"Good to know!" Varric's voice makes my nerves stutter in anxiety. "Here I thought we'd be ass-deep in demons forever." He headed toward me and my stomach bursts into nervous butterflies. "Varric Tethras: Rogue, storyteller, and," he winked at Cassandra who in turn scowled at him, "occasionally unwelcome tag along."

Deep breath girl. Now or never. I pulled the helm covering my face off, "The name's Elyria, but you used to call me Ellie."

Nine pages.

I'm sitting here a bit frosty from the cold outside, wishing I still lived in California.

Going to go snuggle the pup and kitties. 3 To all of you!

For those wondering, yes this will absolutely deviate once we get past the beginning of the story.